


Post Mortem

by SugarGlider



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Ghost!Sherlock, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarGlider/pseuds/SugarGlider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock comes back as a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At first, Sherlock found being a ghost rather stimulating. He'd regained awareness with a flood of relief – _It's fine, I'm alive, I can save John and Mrs Hudson and -_

 

It had taken him exactly 3.5 seconds from awakening to deduce that he was in the autopsy room at Bart’s morgue, hovering at a forty five degree angle to a cadaver whose features were drenched in blood. It took another 2.4 seconds to determine the cadaver's identity.

 

“Oh,” breathed Sherlock, although anatomically speaking, air did not actually flow through his bronchiole tubes, a fact which was quite obvious as the mortuary technician was currently weighing them on the scales.

 

He watched the technician go about her work, strangely reluctant to look at the corpse ( _your corpse_ ) again. When he looked down at his hand, it appeared solid, but as he moved it closer towards his face, he could see the cold white autopsy table and what had previously been his very own O positive blood shimmering behind it. When he covered his eyes with his palm, he found he could see clearly. Sherlock thought that it was quite fortunate he no longer had the physical capacity to vomit. 

 

“Shock, you're in shock” accused the part of Sherlock's mind that sounded like Lestrade.

 

“No,” he told it coldly, “I'm dead.” And to prove it to the part of his mind which insisted he experiencing a narcotic induced hallucination, he glided (That was what ghosts did, wasn't it?) to where the technician (divorced twice, two Siamese cats) was recording the weight of his brain.

 

As he gazed at the mass of cortical tissue, he felt a pang of regret that he couldn't compare its size to Mycroft's.

 

A knock sounded at the door (two strikes, Bart's employee). Molly came into the room, hugging a clipboard tightly to her chest as if she were afraid it was trying to escape. A flood of memories hit Sherlock, so powerful that he barely registered Molly speaking haltingly to the technician.

  
  


He'd last seen her in the darkened lab before the fall, when she'd built a bridge through to him amidst his fear and despair. And in return he had entrusted her with not only his own life, but with one infinitely more precious to him – John Watson's.

  
  


He glanced back at his former body. Clearly, the staying alive part of his plan hadn't worked such a treat. He needed answers. He needed  _data._

  
  


Sherlock waited until the technician was occupied with paperwork before positioning himself behind Molly's left ear. “Hello, Molly,” he murmured.

  
  


She spun around with a gasp. Her knuckled went white around her clipboard, and her eyes stared straight through him, focusing on his cadaver before flicking around like a skittish horse. She could hear him, but not see him. Interesting.

  
  


“No, you're not going mad, and no, I can't read your mind” said Sherlock, rolling his eyes at the predictability of it all.

  
  


“What -”

  
  


“Don't answer me,” he said immediately. “Not here, or she _will_ think you're mad. Do you understand?”

  
  


Molly hesitated, then nodded, biting her lip. Clearly, she still at least partially thought she was experiencing auditory hallucinations. The worst thing was, Sherlock couldn't find it in himself to blame her. Was it possible to hallucinate somebody else hallucinating?

  
  


“Finish here, and go somewhere private,” Sherlock said, trying to wrestle his mind away from the fact that he no longer had a functional physical body. There would be plenty of time for an existential crisis _after_ he obtained more data. “We need to talk.”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock sat opposite Molly, idly rocking back on his tall lab stool. He told himself that he was glad that no-one (John) could tell him to stop it before he fell and broke his stupid neck. Then he saw Molly's expression – seventy percent horror, ten percent nausea and twenty percent fascination – looking at what must appear to be a chair moving by itself. _Cameras,_ said a distant part of his brain, _Mycroft._ Sherlock gave one last petulant swing, then fell still.

  
  


“Are you going to tell me what's going on?” said Molly, her voice surprisingly firm. Her eyes were fixed steadily at a point an inch higher than where his eyes actually were. She remembers me as being taller, he thought, and felt something inside of him twist.

  
  


“Actually,” said Sherlock, “I was rather hoping you would.” He pressed his palms together, and leant forward. 'Tell me everything that happened from when I last saw you, and leave no detail out.”

  
  


“I did what you asked,” she said quickly, as if afraid he was going to contradict her. She screwed up her face in concentration. “I gave the first message to the homeless man on the corner, the one with the yellow beanie, and -” she hesitated.

  
  


“Go on,” Sherlock said impatiently, leaning forward.

  
  


“And I got your – blood. From baker street. From your fridge,” she said, her voice too bright, too brittle. “Lestrade was there. He looked worn out, so I-'

  
  


“What did you do after you got the blood?” Sherlock did not want to hear about Baker street. He couldn't afford to be distracted.

  
  


“Oh – okay. I went back to Barts, like you asked,” Molly said.“Except when I got into the morgue, there was another man already there. He said he worked for – Mr. Mycroft Holmes?”

  
  


Sherlock's eyes narrowed. “Describe him.”

  
  


“What?”

  
  


“His appearance. His clothes. You know my methods, Molly Hooper.”

  
  


“He was – tall. Maybe six foot one, fix foot two? Dark hair, and he made me feel -”

  
  


Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “What?” he barked, when it looked like she was getting too absorbed in her recollection to answer properly.

  
  


Molly started, and her eyes refocused on the point just above his head. “He made me feel like I hadn't gone to a good enough school,” she admitted, her cheeks colouring slightly.

  
  


Sherlock's lips quirked in a half smile, half grimace. “That's Mycroft's staff for you.” But his amusement quickly faded. Somewhere, he was certain of it, he had been betrayed. The open backed truck he had arranged to cushion his fall had moved away at the critical moment. Someone had wanted him to believe his plan was working until it was too late to do anything but paint the pavement red. But who had done it, and for what purpose? Apart from the obvious, of course. Perhaps -

  
  


“Um, Sherlock? Still there?” Molly asked, then gave a little laugh. “It's so strange, I've been doing post-mortems for seven years and you're the first ghost I've talked to. I wonder if you'll start a trend, like how the junior lab techs went out and bought coats just like the one you -”

  
  


“Thank you for your help, Molly.” Sherlock interrupted, standing up. “I need to speak to the Lestrade.”

  
  


“Oh – right,” said Molly,” and there is an odd note in her overly bright voice that makes him pause.

  
  


“What?” he demands, and is disconcerted to note that looming over her in his customary manner produces none of the customary results. She does not even blink in response to his tone.

  
  


“Nothing, it doesn't matter. I thought - that is – I'm just surprised you're not going to see John, first.”

  
  


Sherlock scoffs, too loudly. “ _Doctor_ Watson was concussed. His statement will hardly give me any useful information.”

  
  


She looks at him sharply. “That's not what I meant.”

  
  


“You said it yourself,” Sherlock said coldly, and affects a girlish voice to mimic Molly - “'I've been doing post-mortems for seven years and you're the first ghost I've talked to.' There's a reason I've come back like this, Molly, and I need to find out why. Nothing else matters, do you understand?” He realises he is shouting, but still she stares unflinchingly at him.

  
  


“I understand,” Molly said, “But - I don't think you do.” She takes a deep breath, as if steeling herself for something. “You know where to find me.” And with that, she turns and walks away, her back straight and hands clenched. The laboratory door swings shut behind her.

  
  


Sherlock knows he could follow her, bombard her with questions until she breaks under the strain.

Instead, he feels as if he is an insect pinned to paper, lifeless. Trapped behind glass, able to see, to observe, but helpless to do anything but watch the rest of the world flow past him.

  
  


It is intolerable.

  
  



End file.
